


Bonds of Matrimony

by lizandletdie



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Hate Sex, Implied dubcon, Revenge Sex, affair, belle is cheating on regina, belle/regina - Freeform, but the story kind of is, i'm not anti regina, this story is problematic, with gold
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-04-25 20:01:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4974196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizandletdie/pseuds/lizandletdie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In cursed Storybrooke, Regina is married to Felicity French, the florist's daughter. Felicity is a stay at home mom raising their son and trying to make the best of a situation she doesn't know how to get out of, when Mr. Gold provides an opportunity for a small act of rebellion.</p><p>Based on prompts for my second Rumbelleversary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> BELLEYONCE: Prompt: In cursed Storybrooke, Belle is Regina's wife

It never made much sense how Regina Mills had ended up married to Felicity French. They’d been together as long as anyone could remember, marrying not long after Felicity finished high school, and nobody was really sure exactly why. For one thing, Regina didn’t even seem to like her that much. There was no shortage of snide comments about Felicity’s deadbeat father when her wife was just out of earshot. For another thing, it was an open secret around town that Regina was having an affair with the sheriff, and her wife had no idea – though even if she  _had_  known, what could she possibly do about it?

Mr. Gold couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy whenever he saw the hapless Mrs. French-Mills about town. She was primarily a stay-at-home mother to young Henry, who he’d acquired for them at Regina’s request, though from all accounts Felicity was a devoted mother even though Henry had cut short her attempts to finish her degree.

He often saw the three of them around town. Regina in particular seemed to enjoy traipsing her family up and down Main Street on Saturdays and occasionally popping into his shop to discuss things of absolutely no importance while Felicity struggled to keep Henry from putting his hands all over the counters. 

Something never really felt right about the two of them as a couple, though opposites were said to attract and Regina Mills with her biting tongue and overachieving tendencies were certainly in direct opposition to Felicity’s shy temperament and kind words. He rather liked Felicity (though he suspected most people did), but still avoided her for the most part. Dealing with Felicity meant dealing with Regina, and Regina was a thorn in his side that he preferred avoiding if at all possible.

There were days, though, when he was forced to deal with her. For example, she would help her father at his flower shop during the busy season and he would occasionally see her on rent days. Those were the times that left him wondering if maybe it had been some fluke of proximity that threw them together, because he couldn’t understand how on earth the unassuming, mousy little Felicity French with her big, innocent blue eyes had ended up married to _Regina Mills_  of all people. It just absolutely boggled his mind.

Still, though, stranger things had happened – and she certainly seemed happy (though frazzled), and on those rare occasions when Regina would embrace her wife publicly and offer her a kiss, Felicity always pulled away smiling and blushing prettily. It could be love, he supposed. Sweeter girls had certainly fallen for worse people.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPOTTYTONGUEDOG: Prompt: Belle gets into an argument with Regina and leaves the house. She runs into Gold while still visibly upset.

Felicity could be in that house a second longer. She and Regina rarely fought, but when they did…

Sometimes she wasn’t sure why she’d even married the mayor, except that they’d been young and it had seemed like the right choice at the time. And she’d gotten Henry out of the deal, which seemed like a fair trade no matter what.

No, that was her anger talking. It wasn’t an unhappy marriage. The passion had largely gone out of it, but between Regina’s career and motherhood, of course things were different. That’s how it was supposed to work, wasn’t it?

She was so distracted nursing her wounded feelings, she didn’t notice poor Mr. Gold walking until she had walked bodily into him and almost sent him sprawling on the sidewalk.

“Oh my goodness,” she exclaimed, grabbing his arm to steady the both of them. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Gold! I didn’t see you there!”

Most people in town were terrified of Mr. Gold, but Felicity wasn’t. For one thing, they owned their home (well, Regina owned their home because of some fluke in the law about same sex marriages, but still) and he’d never been cruel to her. He was a businessman, certainly, but Felicity wasn’t involved in all that. Regina dealt with their finances – and with Mr. Gold.

“It’s quite all right,” he replied, straightening himself back up at the sight of her. “What brings you out tonight?”

She shouldn’t tell him. Her marriage wasn’t anyone else’s business, and Regina wouldn’t want her to talk about it. She respected her wife’s desire to keep their private lives private (Regina was an elected official, after all) but it suddenly hit Felicity all at once that even if she _had_  wanted to tell anyone about it, she didn’t have anyone to talk to besides her father.

When had she lost all her friends?

She took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves.

“We had a bit of a spat,” she said after awhile. “I was actually about to turn around and go back.”

“Ah,” he replied. “Trouble in paradise?”

Felicity bristled at that his remark. People had been looking for her marriage to fail ever since she married a woman and she wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction of it.

“Nothing of the sort,” she said sharply. “I was just about to go home, actually.”

She expected that to be the end of it when she turned on her heel and began to stalk off.

“Wait,” he called out, and she could hear the uneven gait behind her as he hurried to catch up to her. “I’d like to apologize.”

She stopped and turned back around, putting her hand on her hip and waiting.

“It was none of my business,” Mr. Gold said. “I shouldn’t have intruded.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” she replied sharply, but she knew she was mostly angry with Regina and taking it out on him. “But thank you. For apologizing.”

“It’s no matter,” he said with a little wave of his hand. “May I walk you home? If you wouldn’t mind the company, that is.”

She considered saying no, that she could take herself back. But it was getting late and she hated to be walking alone this time of night. She wouldn’t have even taken the risk if she hadn’t been so very angry with her wife. Besides, it would  _really_  annoy Regina to see her with Mr. Gold (her wife could be possessive in a way that had felt romantic when she was 18, and less so as she got older), so she nodded and smiled at him and made conversation as they walked back to the big house where Felicity’s life lay.

She was rather pleasantly surprised at how much she enjoyed Mr. Gold’s company. They’d never spent any significant amount of time together before, but he was clever and biting in a way that she remembered being attracted to before she was married, though it was a pleasant surprise to find it directed at targets that weren’t her for a change.

Felicity waved goodbye to Mr. Gold as she let herself back into the house to find Regina still awake, though changed into her nightgown and waiting up in the living room for her.

“Where have you  _been_?” Regina exclaimed, jumping up and pacing over to her in her bare feet. “I was so worried!”

“I ran into Mr. Gold on my walk,” Felicity replied, feeling exactly like the teen bride she had been. “He walked me home.”

Regina’s eyes narrowed for a moment, and she glanced toward the door as though the man himself would materialize there before she returned her attention to Felicity, cupping her face in her hands and kissing her slowly. 

“I’m sorry for what I said earlier,” Regina said. “It was completely out of line.”

“It was,” Felicity said, already feeling her resolve to be angry with her wife dissolving. “But it’s okay. I’m not really mad anymore.”

“Good,” Regina replied, running her fingers through her hair. “Let me make it up to you?”

Felicity felt a little lightheaded and giddy at the implied proposition, and she just barely managed to nod before Regina was leading her up the stairs to their bedroom. She should be happy that things were back to normal again, she knew. Usually, their arguments didn’t end quite so satisfyingly, but as she drifted off to sleep that night with her body completely worn out, she couldn’t help the little pang of regret that hit her when she realized that she had once again capitulated to what Regina wanted without even realizing it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tinuviel-undomiel asked:  
> Prompt: Felicity and Gold start an affair right before Emma shows up. (Hey, you asked for it ;-D)

It had started at Regina’s Christmas party. Every year Regina threw a ridiculously extravagant affair for campaign donors and Felicity was expected to be the perfect hostess. She hated those parties. Regina chose everything from the menu to Felicity’s dress. It was full of wealthy, successful people and it made Felicity feel so insecure about how little she’d ever done in her life to be around them.

Henry would make an appearance – suitably dressed in a sweater vest and khakis – be fawned over, and then Felicity would take him upstairs and put him to bed. The few minutes she could tend to her son away from the rest of the party were always her favorite part, and as he got older the less time she could reasonably be away from the adults.

After her son was settled into bed, Felicity snuck outside. The main party was inside, and the smokers wouldn’t be out until after dinner. So she had just a few moments of peace. She watched the fog of her breath in the cold and wondered what it would be like to be brave enough to take up smoking. She’d never done it before, because Regina hated the smell, but somehow the idea that she’d never even had a choice not to bothered her.

It was a bit of a surprise to see Mr. Gold ascending the steps from the back yard, and she tried to blend into the shadows as soon as she saw him. He paused, looking right at her.

“I see I’m not the only one who needed a break,” he said simply, coming to stand next to her.

“I’ll be going in soon,” she said. “It’s just so loud inside.”

It wasn’t, really. She just hated crowds so damn much.

“It is,” he agreed, taking off his jacket and handing it to her before she even realized she was freezing in her short sleeved dress.

“Thank you,” she said, slipping it on. It was warm from his body and still had a strange spicy scent she didn’t quite recognize.

They stood in an amiable silence for a little while. She’d always liked Mr. Gold, even though Regina didn’t – although maybe the fact Regina didn’t was part of his charm.

“Are you enjoying the party so far?” she asked him at last.

“As much as I expected to,” he replied. “What about you?”

“About the same,” she agreed. “Regina enjoys them, though.”

“Someone should,” he said with a shrug.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course,” he replied, taking a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and tapping them against his palm a little.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” she said instead.

“I don’t often,” he said. “Mostly just when it’s cold. You don’t mind, do you?”

“I don’t,” she replied, suddenly wanting to be closer to him.

“You were going to ask me a question?”

“Right,” she replied, trying to get back to her earlier thoughts. “Why are you friends with Regina? You don’t seem to like her that much

“Some people might say the same for you,” he said with a shrug.

“They would,” she replied. “I suppose that doesn’t make much sense, either.”

“Not really, no.”

They went back to their silence again, and she didn’t much mind. The smell of the cigarette smoke was enveloping them and she suddenly needed to do _something_  crazy and self-destructive before she went absolutely insane.

“You know what she would hate?” she asked him, turning to look at him.

“What’s that?” he asked her, tossing the cigarette butt onto the patio.

“This,” she replied, standing on tiptoes to kiss him hard. 

Felicity wasn’t even sure what she saw in him, except that it would drive Regina crazy if she knew what was going on. Mr. Gold was the one person in town who Regina couldn’t destroy, and he just happened to have a grudge against the mayor.

It wasn’t long before the two had taken up a proper affair. She’d been interested in boys before in high school, but Regina had been her first real relationship and she hadn’t looked back since then. It was probably stupid, throwing away her marriage on random hookups while Henry was in school, but it felt good knowing that she was doing something that she wasn’t ‘supposed’ to do and she couldn’t remember the last time she had indulged in something because  _she_  wanted to.

They had a system worked out now. On Thursday mornings, he opened the pawn shop late so that he could do ‘inventory.’ Felicity would drop Henry off at school and then make her way downtown to run errands. Errands just happened to take her past the back door of the pawn shop, where a key would be under the mat waiting for her to let herself in. They had meaningless sex on a cot in the back of the shop, and then they would get dressed again and she would leave.

It wasn’t exactly a great love story, but it was so easy to forget how dissatisfied she was with the rest of her life when she had him between her legs and she harbored no illusions that he was mostly interested in her out of pure spite. If Regina (or anyone else) suspected something, they kept their mouths shut.

Thursdays were Felicity’s favorite day of the week, the one day when she was allowed to be herself and not the mayor’s wife. It turned out she didn’t like smoking, and she did still like guys.

“Can I ask you a question?” he asked her once as she lay stretched out like a cat next to him after having been fucked mostly senseless.

“Sure,” she said, enjoying the drowsy post-orgasmic bliss she found herself in. Her legs were too unsteady to even think about getting dressed and she felt a pleasant soreness between her legs.

“Why did you get married?”

“To Regina, you mean?”

He didn’t reply, but the look on his face said that’s exactly what he was thinking.

“We were young,” she replied, a little surprised at how honest she was being. “I was younger and she seemed grown up and mature and wordly. She was twenty-three and brilliant and I was eighteen and had never really been anywhere. What girl wouldn’t feel special to get attention from someone like that, you know?”

She’d never really explained it to anyone before and hearing it in so many words just felt foolish. She’d been such an idiot when she was eighteen.

“It sounds silly,” she said after awhile.

“Not at all,” he replied. “You’re hardly the first girl to make that mistake, I’d wager.”

“Maybe,” she said at last. “I guess I should get dressed. I’ll see you next week? Or…”

“Or what?” he asked.

“On Saturdays Regina has city council meetings,” she replied. “And this weekend Henry is supposed to go to an overnight astronomy trip with his class.”

“Oh,” he replied, sounding a little shocked and frankly so was she. She’d never tried to expand the bounds of their Thursday arrangement, and neither had he. But she suddenly didn’t want to be alone.

“Think about it,” she replied. “I might be amenable to making it worth your while.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma's arrival shakes everything up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oncer4life69dearie wanted to see Rumple pursuing Belle, and I thought that actually fit this fic pretty well. So here we go!

Mr. Gold hadn’t seen Felicity all day. He’d heard through the grapevine that Henry had gone missing, but she hadn’t exactly spared the time to come visit and keep him abreast of the situation, and he had to collect rent. He’d heard some whispers there was a stranger in town, though, so perhaps it had all worked itself out. 

Sure enough, there was a strange car in front of the bed & breakfast when he went to collect the rent and there was a blonde woman he didn’t recognize, and then suddenly everything came together. It was like seeing in color for the first time, and it was all he could do to collect his money and leave with all the memories resurfacing. 

He wasn’t Mr. Gold at all – he was Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One. He had come here to find his son. The curse was breaking, and he’d be able to look for Baelfire soon – but _Belle_ was here. His stomach heaved with that realization. Oh gods, Belle was married to Regina. He had better knowledge than most of what had been going on in that marriage, and the idea that _he_ had been the reason she was being taken advantage of didn’t sit easy on his shoulders. He was going to have to get her away from Regina, but he also needed the curse to break. 

He could kill Regina, that was certainly an option though not his first choice – the potential ramifications were unpredictable, and he couldn’t risk being prevented from leaving to find Bae.

Rumplestiltskin wasn’t sure how he managed to find his way home, but he didn’t sleep. There was too much to think of, and too much to do. Rescuing Belle and ensuring the curse was broken was going to be an impossible dance along the dagger’s edge, and he wasn’t sure how he’d be able to handle it.

 

He’d almost forgotten that Felicity was supposed to come to the shop on Saturday for a liaison with Mr. Gold until his phone rang and heard her voice on the other end.

“I can’t come over today,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“No, of course,” he said. “I don’t blame you. Is everything alright?”

“It’s fine, but Henry went to go find his birth mom yesterday and now she’s here in town.”

Ah, so the blonde was his birth mother. Well, wasn’t that interesting?

“I just need to take some time to focus on my family,” she continued. “I don’t know if I can keep seeing you right now.”

That he hadn’t expected, and his stomach dropped into his shoes at that news. He’d expected to have a few stolen hours soon to try to make a case for her to leave Regina and maybe take Henry with her, but if she was going to be breaking things off with him that was going to put a damper on his plans.

“No,” he protested. “Don’t make any rash choices. Why don’t we just wait and see how you feel on Thursday?”

“I can’t,” she said, whispering even more quietly and he thought he heard a door close. She must be at home and trying to avoid being overheard. “Regina’s really nervous. She thinks Henry’s birth mom wants him back.”

“Just meet me on Thursday,” he said. “I’m the one who handled Henry’s adoption, I may have some papers about him somewhere about it.”

“I don’t know…”

“I’m not asking for anything,” he said. “But I might be able to help you with all this.”

“Okay,” she said at last. “But I’m coming when the shop is open. I can’t have anything to hide until this is all settled, okay?”

They hung up, and he took a breath. He was going to have to make her fall in love with him, wasn’t he? He didn’t know how he’d done it before, and he certainly had no idea how to do it now.

 

Felicity wasn’t sure if she was going to even show up at the pawn shop until she finally did. She was debating calling to cancel even as she was standing outside the door and she only finally went in because she didn’t want anyone to see her lurking outside the pawn shop like she was having an affair with the proprietor.

It felt weird to be here for a platonic reason. The two of them barely had a personal relationship, they mostly just had meaningless sex and then she’d leave. The idea of him doing her a favor was a little bit weird, but she needed it. He’d been right, he could help them. There weren’t many lawyers in Storybrooke, but she thought she remembered knowing that he had some experience and he was right – he _had_ been the one to do the paperwork for their adoption of Henry. He could help.

Mr. Gold was waiting at the counter when she walked in, and for a second she was sure he’d been waiting for her but that was silly. Why would he?

“Hey,” she said, walking to the counter and stopping in front of him. “Did you find those papers?”

“I did,” he said, putting his hand on a thick manila folder and sliding it towards her. “That’s all the paperwork for the adoption. I went back over it, and it’s all in order. Legally, I’m not sure the birth mother will have a leg to stand on to challenge it.”

“That’s good. So she can’t get custody?”

“I’m afraid that’s a matter for the courts,” he replied. “But if Regina even knows a half decent lawyer I’m sure you’ll all be fine.”

She felt like she could breathe for the first time since she’d realized Henry had gone missing the day before. Her wife and her son were her life. Maybe it wasn’t the most modern lifestyle, but she was happy in it. Maybe she hadn’t realized how much she loved it until it was threatened, but there wasn’t much in her life she could be proud of besides that.

“Thank you,” she said once she could manage it. “I really appreciate this.”

“It’s nothing,” he said. “I know what it’s like to lose a child, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

“You have a child?”

She somehow hadn’t known that, and it made her wonder what else she hadn’t known.

“A son,” he replied.

“What happened?”

“My wife left, and then he got older and so did he.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond. That was her greatest fear, regardless of her feelings on Regina and their lives together she didn’t want to be alone. She _wanted_ to keep being the mayor’s wife and Henry’s mother – and Mr. Gold’s lover. This was all just so complicated, being torn between the dutiful wife and the scandalous affair, but maybe she was more complicated than anyone else thought?

“Thank you again,” she said before she could make any poor choices. “This is really helpful. I appreciate it.”

“You’re very welcome,” he said. “Please, let me know if I can do anything else for you.”

She nodded and practically ran into the street. What the hell was she even doing with him? And why did she want so badly to run back in and take off all her clothes?


End file.
